Process of making sugar.



N0. 746,177. PATBNTED DEC. 8, 1903.

J. 0. S GHWEITZER. PROCESS OFJMAKING SUGAR.

APPLIOATION FILED JAN. 2, 1902.

no MODEL.

. INVENTOHK WITNESSES" I a 0 d g y UNITED Y STATES Yatented December 8, 1903 PATENT OFFICE.

JACQUES OCIPOWITOH SOHWEITZER, OF PARIS, FRANCE.

PROCESS OF MAKING SUGAR.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Batent No. 746,177, dated December 8, 1903.

Application filed January 2, 190 2. Serial No. 88,246. (No specimens.)

To all whom it may concern: H

Be it known that I, .TAcoUEs Ocrrowrron SOHWEITZER, of 15 Rue Alphonse de Neu ville,

Paris, in the Republic of France," have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Manufacture .and Refining of Sugar; and I do hereby declare the following tobe a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertainsto make and use the same.

The invention comprehended in this application refers to improvements in the manufacture and the refining of sugar.

These improvements relate to a particular process for the treatment of masse-cuite from sugar manufacture or refining with the object of increasing the quantity of crystallized sugar of these masses byadding to it a portion of the sugar contained in their mother-liquor of crystallization. I

Ordinarily the boiled massesthat is, the syrups derived from the concentration of beetjuice and boiled in the closed kettle to boil to grain in vacu0-are treated in centrifugal machines when they leave the boiling apparatus and are delivered therefrom directlyinto cool ing kneading machines or into coolers. Under such conditions the crystallizable sugar contained in the mother-liquor of crystallization of the masse-cuite in a great measure returns to the syrupy waters that is, is led away with the syrups flowing from the turbine and to betreated as low products.

I have conceived the idea of treating the masse-cuite before they enter the centrifugal and immediately when leaving the boiling apparatus, so as to drive again into the so-called mass a large portion of the sugar from the mother-liquor of crystallization and to bring the latter into a state by which all the rest of the sugar it keeps after this first treatment may be easily extracted from it.

My process consists, essentially, in kneading the warm masse-cuite when they leave the boiling apparatus with concentrated alcohol and cooling them subsequently, the-kneading being done preferably in cacao, though it may be carried out in a closed apparatus. The alcohol when warm dissolves a certain portion of sugar of the mother-liquor of crystallization of the masse-cuite and then allows a portion of this sugar to cool which is superadded to the crystals ofthe so-called mass.

The masse-cuite, alcoholized and cooled, en-

riched in sugar, is then introduced in the centrifu gal, and the sugar-crystals separate from the alcoholized mother water. The latter, being then poorer in pure sugar than ordinary molasses from the manufacture and refining of sugar, maybe distilled in order to retrieve the alcohol. The settling is a molasses of inferior purity, or, again, instead of distilling directly the alcoholized mother-liquor of crystallization leaving the turbines it can be treated by a milk of lime or by slaked powder-lime, the sugar salt of lime formed being insoluble in alcohol precipitates. Thus the mother-liquor yields all its sugar. The sugar salt is then separated by filtering from the alcoholic residuary syrup, the alcohol of which, as well as the alcohol contained in the sugar salt, is regenerated by distillation.

' The apparatus for carrying out the process is illustrated diagrammatically in the accompanying dra wing.

In the drawing, 1 is a reservoir containing the syrup from the concentration of beet-juice and communicating by a pipe (1, provided with a cock 7', with the boiling apparatus 2 of any desired construction. This boiling apparatus communicates by a conduit F With the empty central pipe V.

3 is a suitable kneading apparatus communicating at its upper part by the pipe G with the empty pipe V. The side of this kneading apparatus communicates, on the one hand, by the conduit 1) with the boiling apparatus 2,

and, on the other hand, by a conduit e with an I alcohol-reservoir 5. A conduit 61 connects also the kneading apparatus with a reservoir 4, containing syrupy Waters previously boiled. On the conduits b d e are disposed the cooks s c n, respectively. The masse-cuite conveyed by suction into the kneading apparatus is fed with syrupy waters comingfrom the reservoir 4, not for any indispensable reason, but because it impoverishes the masse-cuite, and so reduces the quantity of alcoholnecessary to extract the sugar. When the masse-cuite fills twofifths or so of the total capacity of the kneading apparatus 3, it is concentrated until it contains not more than about five per cent. of water. Then is shut OK the pipe of steam arriving in the double bottom of the kneading apparatus, as Well as the communication of the latter with the vacuum. The vacuum in the kneading apparatus 3 allows high-grade alcohol nine and ninety-eight hundredths per cent. to enter into the reservoir 5 in sufficient quantity to liquefy the mass. The cock at is then closed and While keeping on to knead the mixture is cooled by the atmospheric air or artificially by a cold stream of water or other appropriate means until the temperature is reduced to 15 or 20 centigrade, for instance. The mother liquor of crystallization then loses a large portion of its sugar in behalf of the sugancrystals from the masse-cuite. To separate the latter from the alcoholized motherliquor having thus partially yielded its sugar, it is driven through a pipe x, the cock y of which is open, into a distributer 6, which is JACQUES OClPUWl'lCll SCHWEI'I'ZER.

Witnessesz' LOUIS GARDET, EDWARD P. MACLEAN. 

